SAMEER BAGGA



http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-education.htm

This describes the education in the Elizebethan Era












EDUCATION IN THE ELIZEBETHAN ERA Prepared by Sameer B
The education during the Elizabethan Era was very similar to our education today. However, only the upper and middle class went to school. The lower class was considered “the working class”. For instance, adults and children would work at factories and roll cigars. At the beginning of the school day for children in the upper and middle class, the children would respect their parents, ask for blessings, learn table manners, and understand their overall role and impact in society. Between ages five to seven, the children went to petty school in which manners and the basics of the Latin language were learned. Then, at ages seven to fourteen, the children went to grammar school. Now they were starting to learn the language in depth. From ages seven to ten, the children learned the rudiments of Latin along with a book called Lily’s Latin Grammar. During the first year of Elizabethan education, at age seven, the curriculum included parts of speech together with verbs and nouns.
The second year of Elizabethan education, at age 8, they would be taught the rules of grammar and sentence construction. The third year of Elizabethan education, at age9, was centered on English-Latin and Latin-English translations. Also while the children were in their first three years, they were taught by Ushers are comparable to tutors in education nowadays. When the child graduated from age 7-10 curriculum they moved onto the age 10-14 curriculum. Now instead of Ushers, there were masters who taught Latin to English translations, math, literature by Ovid, Plautus, Horace, Virgil, Cicero and Seneca , sometimes the study of Greek, and religious education that had started from the beginning of the curriculum. The following is an example of a regular school day. 1) Monday- An examination based on the previous Sunday’s sermon. 2) Tuesday to Thursday - the basic curriculum. 3) Friday - Examinations and Punishments. 4) Saturday - study of the catechism (the teachings of the Christian religion) and some arithmetic.
Although both the urban and the noble class had education, the noble class had a slightly different way of learning. The noble class had lots of tutors for almost every subject from Greek to Latin. Also, the noble had much more exposure to the curriculum than the urban peoples. Overall, the children that lived in the Shakespeare have almost the identical education of the children today.